a very specific management program

[sickforska]

I am the Photo Editor for my high schools yearbook, and managing photos is a pain.

we take over 10,000 photos a year,and need a good way to manage our photos.

If anyone can recommend a program that fits these needs, i would be very grateful.

here are the requirements we need.

1. be able to take care of all of our photos without crashing (we lost a lot of photos last year by using iphoto)

2. preferably some sort of file system or metadata templates to make sure our photographers get credit for their photos.

3. batch changing

4. since there are over 60 students working on pages, i would like the program to work well with our server, so that any student can easily access the photos and take them out, without messing with the originals.

5. works well with photoshop

6. and, since we run macs, it needs to be compatible

I have thought about using extensis's programs, but at 200 dollars a pop, its a lot of money for 30 computers (i called them to ask about large volume purchases, and have yet to recieve a call).

thanks in advance for everyones help

[SmartWombat]

Thumbs plus http://www.cerious.com/

[masdog]

I am the Photo Editor for my high schools yearbook, and managing photos is a pain.

Welcome, sickforska. I know your pain. I was the chief photographer on my high school yearbook staff way back when - and that just before affordable digital SLRs.

we take over 10,000 photos a year,and need a good way to manage our photos.

Well, you've come to the right place. We'll help you as best as we can.

If anyone can recommend a program that fits these needs, i would be very grateful.

Any solution you find here won't meet every requirement you have, but we'll try to get close.

1. be able to take care of all of our photos without crashing (we lost a lot of photos last year by using iphoto)

Most software, even iPhoto, should be capable of that, so I wonder...how do you store your files. Do you place them all in one giant folder and let the software handle the sorting, or do you sort the files into individual folders based on subject, date, or some other metric?

2. preferably some sort of file system or metadata templates to make sure our photographers get credit for their photos.

File system and metadata are two separate things. File system is how the computer system stores files while metadata is the tagging (ie exif) data contained in the file. Again, almost all photo management software should support exif tags, which have a section for data on the photographer.

3. batch changing

Batch renaming of files or batch processing? You have to be a little more specific.

4. since there are over 60 students working on pages, i would like the program to work well with our server, so that any student can easily access the photos and take them out, without messing with the originals.

That isn't something your photo management software will handle, and it should be done on the server's file system. You should talk to your school's IT department.

One point I would like to make - the students putting the pages together shouldn't have to browse the entire photo archive. Consider creating a series of folders for each two page spread where you can place a copy of the images that go on those pages.

5. works well with photoshop

6. and, since we run macs, it needs to be compatible

If you're using Photoshop CS2, I would recommend Adobe Bridge. It works very well with Photoshop and any other Adobe programs you might be using (such as InDesign).

I have thought about using extensis's programs, but at 200 dollars a pop, its a lot of money for 30 computers (i called them to ask about large volume purchases, and have yet to recieve a call).

If they don't have volume licensing, check to see if they have educational licensing. You shouldn't need it on more than one or two computers because only a few people should be sorting photos and selecting the ones to go into the publication.